“THE ORIGINAL PROMISE OF AMERICA”

2024 Lecture Series

July 18 ~ September 19 ~ November 21

6:30-7:30pm

OVERVIEW

This series of lectures will explore how the Revolutionary generation—Noah Webster’s generation—defined the purposes and prospects of their new nation.  Noah will make occasional appearances; he played a considerable part in creating a distinctive national culture. But the talks won’t foreground him, nor will they bask in nostalgia for a simpler, more hopeful age.  Studies of the past inevitably reflect the present; they can also illuminate paths into the future.  While focusing on Revolutionary Americans’ thinking about the promise of the United States in its childhood, we will consider as well how much of their vision has survived, how much ought to be preserved, and why. Please note: each lecture event is ticketed separately.

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THE ORIGINAL PROMISE OF AMERICA: “LIBERTY”

September 19, 2024

Early Americans universally celebrated liberty.  The white men among them probably enjoyed more of it than any other people of their time.  Yet even they distrusted liberty so much that they seldom allowed the word to go around unchaperoned.  Orators, writers, politicians, and clergymen typically assigned “liberty” an adjectival minder: “ordered liberty,” “rational liberty,” “Christian liberty,” “temperate liberty.”  The liberty Americans lauded had no resemblance to individualism, and it had absolutely nothing to do with license.  The right kind of liberty was really self-government, “a freedom within bounds” set by laws, founded on property ownership, and ideally guided by virtue.  Washington and Franklin, towering model citizens, personified American liberty as it should be.

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Noah Webster House Museum Members = $7.00 (per event)

General Admission = $12.00 (per event)

*Doors open to the presentation at 6:00pm, and seating is on a first come-first served basis.  Seating is limited to 50 guests, and tickets will be available soon.

About the Presenter: Gene Leach is a long-time resident of West Hartford and taught United States history and American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford until his retirement in 2012. Gene came to Trinity College in 1975 with degrees from Harvard, Michigan, and Yale; at various points in his long tenure, he directed the American Studies Program, chaired the History Department, and directed the graduate programs in both fields. His scholarship has centered on American social thought and this country’s working class. Leach has written, lectured, and served on governing boards for several organizations devoted to Connecticut history and culture—including the West Hartford Historical Society!